This is my first post, so please be gentle!
We believe DS1 (5) probably has Aspergers, and we're beginning diagnosis. I'll let you know how that turns out in about a decade then...
Meanwhile, we need help!
First, does anyone have any books to recommend on parenting kids with Aspergers? I saw the thread about Kathy Lettes. Anything else useful out there? Even if he turns out to be elsewhere on the autism spectrum, or different in other ways, the experience won't be wasted. (Plus I'm a uni lecturer, and one of my current students has aspergers, so learning is good.)
Second, and of more immediate concern, DS1 is now refusing to take a vital medicine he has for his constipation/compaction problems.
Short version: the usual parenting approach to tricky situations sooooo doesn't work with DS1. Mega-tantrums and militant refusals which (a) make me think he should become my trade union's next leader and (b) make getting him to do necessary but for him unpleasant things is... argh!
So does anyone have any tips on dealing with overcoming refusals to take meds, or to do other vital but everyday things Aspies find tricky?
Any thoughts really welcome, and if you read this, thanks and have a good day.
Longer version with bit more background for anyone with time to read: DS1 doesn't like pooing due to hypersensitivity and smell issues, which has caused havoc with his bowel, stretching it basically, and it'll take months to go normal. But the meds have made an amazing difference. He's 5.5, and for the last two weeks has had unpooey pants for the first time in his life! He even managed not to leak wee yesterday, which verged on the miraculous. We made as big a fuss of him as we did DS3 yesterday, who has basically toilet trained himself, aged 2.5. Which apparently some kids can do. Who knew. But I digress...
The med is one you dissolve in drink. Started out in OJ and lemonade. Then he could taste it (his senses of taste and smell are incredibly sensitive). So we switched to just lemonade, which was alright for two weeks. Then it wasn't. So we added a spoonful of sugar. OK for a few days. But he can still taste the salty meds, and this morning we had a 2-hour before school "tantrum" (if it is a tantrum, given his difference) where he wouldn't take the meds. We had to give up in the end, although thankfully he'd had quite a bit of it.
But we have to give another dose at tea time tonight. And tomorrow x 2. And so on. For months.
And it matters because he'll end up where we were before this medicine if we're not zealous: pooey pants, ultra-sore bum, screaming when it takes two of us to wipe sensitive areas, DW and I losing our sanity, or whatever remains of it, while DS2 and DS3, amazingly, play happily and do all the things we never realised kids could do by themselves until they began to hit milestones DS1 bypassed on his way to becoming a vulcanologist at 5 (his current obsession is volcanoes, not Mr Spock).
The above reads light-heartedly. But I was almost in tears when I finally had to drive to work this morning. He wasn;t waving goodbye as usual from the front window this morning. He was screaming, banging his fists, crying out for me. I left the car, door open, in the middle of the road and ran back in. It wouldn't help, I knew, but I just couldn't not try. He leapt at me and clung. Eventually, DW had to intervene to separate him from me as he screamed "Daddy, don't leave me" etc, shaking against me with rage, confusion, and his unbendable willpower. I left with my inside torn to rags.
If you read to here, thanks so much for your time, and have a good day.